Page 91 of Crowned

“I thought you had good taste when it came to food.”

Kirill shrugs and says around his mouthful, “I like to experiment. Enjoy your party?”

I tug on my tie and open the top button on my shirt. “I’ll be glad when all this wedding bullshit is over, and I can focus on work again.”

Kirill raises a sardonic brow. “You wife won’t like hearing you say that. After you’re married, she’ll expect you to focus on her.”

I give him my most sarcastic smile. “She can expect whatever she likes. What she gets is another matter. Besides, between shopping and raising my children, she’ll have enough to do.”

“It makes me wonder why you’re bothering to get married.” He takes another enormous bite of his sandwich.

“Stability. Duty. Lineage. I am going to do this family thing right. My own family was a nightmare.” I don’t need to spell it out to Kirill. He knows all about me just as I know all about him.

Kirill makes a dismissive noise and mutters, “So was mine, but you don’t see me dragging myself up the aisle.”

“What do you think of Elyah?” I ask, changing the subject.

Kirill wipes his mouth. “Interesting story. Elyah caught one of the waiters slipping a diamond earring into his pocket. One of your men’s wives had dropped it on the buffet table and the waiter pretended he was clearing plates. I was standing right there, and I didn’t notice a thing until Elyah handed the earring back and marched the waiter out of there, gripping the back of his neck. It was all over in a split second.”

How fucking dare that waiter. And yet I didn’t notice any fuss. Elyah managed to sort it out without upsetting the rest of my guests. Impressive.

“Should I hire him? He’s not much fun.”

Kirill grins and takes a swig of vodka. “I’m the fun around here. Hire Elyah if you want a good bodyguard.”

True. “What does Elyah think of Valeriya?”

My friend laughs and wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “That she is vain, stupid, and shallow.” Kirill pauses, as if he’s trying to decide whether to say something. “And possibly dangerous.”

I frown. “Valeriya, dangerous?”

My friend shrugs and shakes his head. “I asked him what he meant, but all he could say was that he has a bad feeling about her. What are we supposed to do with that? After what happened to him, Elyah doesn’t trust women. Any women.”

Elyah put his neck on the line for his damsel in distress, and she kicked dirt in his face. I wouldn’t soon forget a betrayal such as that either.

“Want me to have a word with him? Tell him to chill the fuck out?” Kirill asks.

Tell the man I hired to protect my life to back off? That would defeat the purpose of having him. “Leave him be. When he figures out that Valeriya is as threatening as a marshmallow mouse, he’ll settle down.”

Elyah turns out to be an excellent bodyguard and driver, focused, professional, and willing to use his fists when I need him to. Very good at using his fists, in fact. The three of us have fun together, and Elyah slowly learns to relax. I’m pleased to discover he has a dry sense of humor, and I understand why he and Kirill bonded so much in jail. If anyone is remotely threatening toward me, Elyah is on them like a guard dog.

The only time Elyah isn’t fun to be around is when a woman is in the room. His hackles go up and he won’t speak or relax until she’s gone, and he seems particularly bothered by my fiancée.

One evening the two of us are sharing a drink at the end of a long day, and I ask him outright. “Elyah. What do you think of my bride-to-be? I want the truth this time.”

The blond man was smiling a moment ago, and now he glares at his vodka like there’s poison in it. “If you want the truth I will give it. She is hiding something. She is planning something.”

“Is she?” I ask lightly.

Elyah’s angry expression melts away and he squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Govno. I don’t know. I used to like women. Now I just see lying mouths and scheming hearts.”

I wait in silence, watching him carefully. I was the same all through my twenties. Kirill doesn’t trust anyone, man or woman, and he was as highly strung as Elyah when he left prison and joined my side.

“How much do you know about your woman? What is her background?”

I describe meeting Valeriya by chance in a nightclub and the many background checks I ran on her. Over the course of many weeks, I have tried to trip her up on a lie, changing small details about the things she has told me and repeating them back to her to see if she notices. She always does and corrects me. Nothing about this venture has been careless.

“Valeriya has no unexplained connections. Nothing to hide. No one to interfere with our lives.” Not having the bother of any in-laws is one of the things I like about her. “I have enemies, of course, but Valeriya is just Valeriya.”

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